For the next two days, Little Leopard practically lived in the smithy, day and night.
Forging kunai was hardly beyond Little Leopard. With his current smelting and smithing skills, making two kunai did not require two days at all; he could finish them in little more than half a day.
The reason he had spent two full days was that he had experimented with the Nine-Dragon Divine Fire Art's fire-control methods during the forging and refining process.
The Nine-Dragon Divine Fire Art was the Wu clan's supreme, clan-guarding art, and naturally, Little Leopard had not learned it in its entirety. Both Old Xing before and Qin Xuanlong now had thought very highly of his prospects, so both had taught him this art. However, neither held a particularly high position in the Wu Household, and all they knew were its foundational techniques.
Still, although master artisans like Old Xing and Qin Xuanlong had learned only the foundational techniques, they knew how to apply the Nine-Dragon Divine Fire Art to artifact refining.
In fact, the reason the Wu Household had become so renowned for artifact refining, establishing a resounding name in the martial world in just five hundred years, was the enhancement the Nine-Dragon Divine Fire Art brought to the craft.
The Nine-Dragon Divine Fire Art cultivated fire-element inner energy by drawing in the fire-element spiritual energy of heaven and earth. Naturally, that spiritual energy could not be compared with ordinary flames produced by burning coal or charcoal. Even flames produced by the finest fuel in the world were mixed and impure. How could they rival fire-element spiritual energy absorbed and converted directly from the spiritual energy of heaven and earth?
But while cultivating fire-element inner energy was easy, using one's own fire-element inner energy in artifact refining was an extraordinary technique-and, at the same time, something of a chicken rib: too little meat to enjoy, yet too much to throw away.
It was extraordinary because artifacts refined with this technique contained far fewer impurities than those refined with ordinary fire. Neither the strength nor the toughness of ordinary-fire artifacts could compare. It was a chicken rib because, marvelous though the technique was, those who truly cultivated profound fire-element inner energy arts had no time to study it. Cultivating martial arts and internal energy already required single-minded concentration, an unwavering pursuit of breakthroughs beyond one's limits to reach higher realms of cultivation. Where would they find so much time to delve into artifact refining? Those who cultivated ordinary arts had time to study the craft, but their internal energy was mixed and impure, scarcely better than ordinary flames. Even if they mastered the technique, their own internal energy was unfit for use. Only the Wu Household's ancestor five hundred years ago, a heaven-born genius, had not only reached the ninth rank but also devised a method of using the Nine-Dragon Divine Fire Art's internal energy to expel impurities from artifacts and improve their quality. That was what had created the present-day Wu Household of Cloud Province.
Yet this method was no less intricate and profound than advanced martial arts, and understanding it was no easy task. What Old Xing and Qin Xuanlong had learned was merely skin-deep. Like the Nine-Dragon Divine Fire Art they had taught Little Leopard, it consisted only of basic introductory methods. Thus, the several weapons Little Leopard had ruined recently had also been casualties of his attempts to apply this method during refining. Although he had failed several times, the price was negligible compared with the experience and insights he had gained.
Clang! A crisp hammer strike rang out. Little Leopard seemed to have exhausted his last scrap of strength, his whole body sagging. Taking a breath, he gripped the newly forged kunai with iron tongs and placed it over the blazing furnace fire. Once its surface glowed red-hot, he drew it out and slowly extended his free left hand until it was an inch away. Feeling the heat radiating from the kunai, he simultaneously channeled the nine-dragon divine fire inner qi within his body into his left hand. Following the artifact-refining method he had learned, he tried to merge it with the surrounding heat. Although the heat around the kunai was far greater than his current, half-baked nine-dragon divine fire inner qi, it was nowhere near as pure. When his nine-dragon divine fire inner qi touched the surrounding currents of heat, they quivered slightly, then actually guided the nine-dragon divine fire inner qi from his body,
slowly into the red-hot kunai.
"Yes?!"
Feeling the nine-dragon divine fire inner qi drain from his body and sensing where it went, Little Leopard was delighted. With his current cultivation, projecting internal energy outside his body should have been utterly impossible. Even at full strength, he could only make his punches radiate scorching heat, increasing their force and destructive power. Projecting internal energy required at least the realm of a Fourth-Rank Martial Artist. This was also why he had failed time and again before. Though he had gained some insight into the technique, he had still prepared himself for failure. He had never expected things to go so smoothly this time-he had actually succeeded.
Looking again at the kunai, he saw its bright red glow gradually dim as his internal energy flowed into it. At the same time, the boundless heat within the kunai traveled back to Little Leopard through his nine-dragon divine fire inner qi.
"Hsss!" The sudden heat made Little Leopard feel as though a red-hot branding iron were tearing his left hand apart. He nearly pulled his hand back.
Good grief! Luckily, this is only a sensation, not actual heat, or my left hand would be ruined! Little Leopard thought. He was about to feed the last thread of flameheart inner qi in his body into the kunai when he discovered that, no matter how hard he tried, he could not send any more internal energy into it.
Has it reached capacity?! A thought stirred in Little Leopard's mind, and he immediately understood. He withdrew his left hand. The kunai no longer shone bright red; instead, it had turned somewhat dark red, with a trace of eerie brilliance.
Without hesitation, Little Leopard plunged the finished kunai straight into the bucket of cold water.
Hiss!
A great billow of white mist surged from the bucket's mouth and spread through the Smelting Room.
Standing amid the white mist, Little Leopard finally showed a faint smile of satisfaction.
Smithing and artifact refining were physical labor, but even more than that, they were skilled work!
To borrow a common saying from Little Leopard's previous life, this was a marriage of strength and wisdom, unlike pill refining, which demanded technical skill alone.
What was the foundation of forging a fine artifact?
Little Leopard had not known before, but now he could answer with complete confidence: a thousand hammerings, a hundred firings!
No matter what kind of keen weapon or divine armament one made, those words were indispensable. Condensed still further, they became "hammering and refining."
"Hammering" referred to the great hammer in Little Leopard's hand and the act of striking with it. "Refining" meant refining with fire, placing the artifact in a furnace to heat and forge it. Together, the two formed the foundation of artifact refining.
Like a great tree, "hammering and refining" formed the trunk of the entire art of artifact refining.
As for shaping, sharpening, blood sacrifices, spirit awakening, restrictions, and countless other artifact-refining methods, those were merely its branches and leaves.
And hammering and refining, the trunk of the craft, each required their own methods.
Hammering did not mean taking a great iron hammer and pounding away wildly at a piece of material. All that would accomplish was turning good material into scrap. Of course, if you were born with extraordinary luck, perhaps a bout of random pounding really could produce a divine weapon. But that sort of luck generally belonged only to the legendary Ancestor Hongjun. Ordinary people had best forget it.
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